I’m not sure why everyone in the national media is so upset today.

Sure, Clemson only won by a point over North Carolina on Saturday in Chapel Hill. I know, the Tigers did not play well, but isn’t the objective to still score one more point than your opponent? Am I wrong about that?

Granted Clemson is a more talented team overall than North Carolina and granted they should have won the game by at least two touchdowns. But isn’t a game like Saturday’s what we love about college football? If a team is not playing well and the other team is playing out of its mind and a turnover happens here and six pre-snap penalties happen there and then all of sudden, we got a real fight on our hands.

What Saturday’s game means after five weeks of the college football season is that Clemson won its fifth game of the season. It doesn’t matter if the Tigers won by 1 point or 50 points, the objective was to win all five games, and they have.

It doesn’t mean Clemson isn’t going to win the national championship. It does not mean they are going to win the national championship. All it means, in the snapchat of this moment, is the 2019 Clemson Tigers are 5-0.

I have been laughing today at all the overreaction from the national media about Saturday’s game.  Last week, the same people that are bashing Clemson for its one-point win over the Tar Heels are the same ones that were asking “how will Clemson respond when it faces adversity this year?”

Well, they now know the answer. They responded by finding a way to still win the game, on a day when the offense had its worst performances in two years.

I am asking those same people, my colleagues in the media, who are bashing Clemson today and who wondered who would step up and challenge the Tigers, when are they going to ask the same question to Alabama and Ohio State?

Clemson’s being bashed today because of its “weak schedule” and that is fair. I have no issue with that part of it. But I ask them this, when will you start to ask how will Ohio State and Alabama respond when they face adversity?

They are both 5-0, and yes, they have taken every team to the woodshed. But who have they played? Today, we know a little more about Clemson than we do about Ohio State and Alabama, and yet the national media has anointed the Buckeyes and Crimson Tide as the two best teams in college football.

Clemson has at least played a top 25 opponent (No. 23 Texas A&M) thus far, and oh by the way it looked very dominant in beating the then No. 12 Aggies in Week 2 of the season.

The best team Ohio State has played this year is Indiana. Let me say that again, Indiana. I’m not talking about who they play next week and all of that. I’m just talking about the first five weeks of the season. What do we really know about the Buckeyes? How will they respond when they face adversity? How will they respond when they are not playing well on the road and they have to make a critical play to win the game? Will they make it? Will they get that stop? We don’t know.

It is the same thing for Alabama. I’m not talking about who they have left to play in the next seven weeks. I am talking about right now. What do we really know about this team?

Here are Alabama’s first five opponents: Duke, New Mexico State, South Carolina, Southern Miss and Ole Miss. To this point, Duke is the best team they have played.

Dabo Swinney learned a lot about his team on Saturday both positive and negative.

The only top 10 teams we truly have an idea of how good they are to this point are No. 7 Auburn (road win at No. 23 Texas A&M and neutral site win over No. 13 Oregon), No. 4 LSU (road win at No. 11 Texas), No. 8 Wisconsin (home win over No. 20 Michigan) and No. 3 Georgia (home win over No. 10 Notre Dame).

Clemson’s goal coming into this season was to “leave no doubt.” On Saturday, the Tigers left some doubt. And they deserve to be question because of it. However, they also answered the question everyone wanted to know. How would this team handle adversity when it comes?

How will Alabama and Ohio State answer that same question when it comes?

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